Soundweavings 2027

Multi-percussionist Haruka Fujii has become one of the most prominent solo percussionists and marimbists of her generation. She has won international acclaim for her interpretations of contemporary music, having performed numerous premieres of works from luminary composers.  Since 2010 Ms. Fujii has performed as an artist of the Grammy Award winning Silkroad Ensemble, joining a group of international musicians founded by Yo-Yo Ma and serves as the Associate Artistic Director alongside with the new artistic director Rhiannon Giddens. 

Ms. Fujii’s passion for introducing audiences to new percussion music has put her on stage with diverse orchestras and ensembles. She has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Nationale de Lyon, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She is a member of San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Line C3 Percussion Group, also Utari Percussion Duo, a duet project with her sister Rika which actively commissions new compositions from young composers. In addition to her career as a performing artist, Ms. Fujii is a faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and has been a frequent guest instructor at Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar and several international percussion festivals. She is also a founder and creative director of a nonprofit organization Nippon Kobo, a new cultural event series introducing Music+Culture from contemporary Japan.

Nguyễn Thanh Thủy is a leading đàn tranh player/improviser in both traditional and experimental music. She was born into a theatre family and was raised with traditional Vietnamese music from an early age in Hà Nội. She studied at the Hanoi Conservatory of Music where she received her diploma in 1998, followed by a Master of Arts at the Institute of Cultural Studies in 2003. Since 2000 she holds a teaching position at the Vietnam National Academy of Music. She has toured in Asia, Europe and the USA. She has received many distinctions including the First Prize and the Outstanding Traditional Music Performer Prize in the National Competition of Zither Talents in 1998. Nguyễn Thanh Thủy has recorded several CD’s as soloist with orchestra and solo CDs, which were released by Phương Nam Film Vietnam; by dB Productions Sweden; by Setola di Maiale Italia and by Neuma Records & Publications USA. She collaborates with composers such as Richard Karpen (US), Kent Olofsson (SE), Nguyễn Thiện Đạo (FR/VN) and Trần Thị Kim Ngọc (VN). 

Daniel Wilfred is a Wagiläk man from Ngukurr, in remote Northern Australia. He was born in Nhulunbuy, skin name, Wamut. He’s a ceremonial leader for the Wagiläk people, singing Manikay and playing bilma at ceremonies in Ngukurr, Numbulwar, Groote Eylandt and surrounding areas. He co-leads celebrated Australian quintet, Hand to Earth, with Sunny Kim, and Peter Knight, and together with his brother David Wilfred has been collaborating and touring for almost 15 years, sharing his songs and culture with people around the world. Recently he has performed with Hand to Earth at venues and festivals including Lincoln Centre (NYC), Pierre Boulez Seal (Berlin) Jazztopad Festival Poland, Bimhuis (Netherlands), Vancouver Jazz Festival, and Jeonju Sori Festival (Korea). Daniel is also a regular performer with the Australian Art Orchestra and was the recipient of the 2019 Arts Fellowship by the Northern Territory. Together with David, he was also awarded the NT Luminary Award for ‘cultural leadership’ at the 2020 Art Music Awards. 

Photo by Sarah Walker 

Sunny Kim is a Korean-born vocalist, improvisor, composer and educator based in Australia. Drawing inspiration from her life journey as a global nomad - Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Denver, Boston, New York and now Melbourne - Sunny is a two-time winner of Jazz People Magazine's Reader's Poll Award in the Best Vocalist category (2012, 2013) and the recipient of the LIG Artist grant (2011), Sunny has released five albums as a leader and has also recorded as a featured vocalist on numerous records such as After Dark (Prana Trio, 2005), White With Foam (MadLove, 2009), and Keep Your Heart Right (Roswell Rudd Quartet, 2007), and founded Hand to Earth with Peter Knight and Daniel Wilfred during an Australian Art Orchestra residency in 2018. As an educator, she has facilitated hundreds of developing musicians from diverse backgrounds to find their creative voice through cultivation of intuition, body awareness and collaborative skills. A former Assistant Professor at Dong-Ah Institute for Media and Arts, Sunny currently lectures at the University of Melbourne in Jazz and Improvisation. Invited by the Australian Music Centre, Sunny delivered the Peggy Glanville-Hicks address in 2020.

Photo by Sarah Walker

Perpetually curious, Peter Knight’s practice exists in the spaces between categories, between genres and between cultures. From 2013-23 Peter was the Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra, for which he commissioned over 100 compositions and collaborations from a diverse range of international and Australian artists including Nicole Lizée, Alvin Lucier, Anthony Braxton, Hyelim Kim, and Senyawa. He also composed for, and performed in the company, presenting his works at international festivals and venues in more than a dozen countries winning awards including four AMC Art Music Awards, the Albert H Maggs Composition Prize, and numerous ARIA nominations. Peter has maintained an active solo career developing an international reputation as an innovator who is extending the possibilities of his instrument with approaches that interweave acoustic and electronics. His latest solo release, Shadow Phase, is out on the ROOM40 label, described by Headphone Commute as, "a carefully curated exercise in reflective restraint, dreamy atmospherics, ebbing dynamics.” He holds a doctorate from Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and was named its Alumnus of the Year in 2013. 

Photo by Sarah Walker

Mazz Swift is a composer, conductor, singer, bandleader, educator, and Juilliard-trained violinist. Improvisation is a throughline in their practice across genres and instrumental configurations, and can be found in most of their works. As violinist and singer, Mx. Swift is no stranger to most of the world’s greatest stages including Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, Müpa Budapest, and David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center in New York City.

As a composer, Swift’s works include commissions by The Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble. As an educator, Swift has taught workshops in free improvisation and “conduction” (conducted improvisation) on six continents and is a performing member and teaching artist with the GRAMMY-award winning Silkroad Ensemble.

Mazz is a 2021 United States Artist, and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, continually creating orchestral compositions that involve Conduction, small ensemble works that include improvisation, and solo works that are centered around protest and freedom songs, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of ‘Sankofa’: looking back to learn how to move forward.

Phot by Erika Kapin

Pura Fé (Tuscarora/Taino/Black/Scottish) is an Indigenous activist, singer-songwriter, and storyteller known for her distinct, soulful vocals and founding the world-renowned Native women’s a Capella singing group Ulali

Pura Fé has been a part of the Silk Road Ensemble under the direction of Rhiannon Giddens, started by Yo Yo Ma and recently touring with the performances American Railroad and Uplifted Voices.

Pura Fé was recently honoured with the Dora Mayor Moore Award for Outstanding Music Composition and Sound Design for Miigus: Underwater Panther. While touring Europe with Music Maker Blues Review under Dixie Frog and Nueva Onda French labels, she won Grand Prix du Disque from L'Académie Charls Cros (French Grammy) for Best World Album in 2006 for Tuscarora Nation Blues, and a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist for Follow Your Heart’s Desire in the same year.

Today, Pura Fé lives in Canada and is working on the film Reclaim My Skin with Screen Sirens Film Productions and Rezolution Pictures. Her latest album Ancestral Waterways will be released in 2025.

Photo by Gwendolen Cates

Described by one critic as “a phenomenal harp player who can make her instrument ring with unparalleled purity”, Maeve Gilchrist has taken the Celtic (lever) harp to new levels of performance and visibility. 

Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, and currently based in New York, Maeve‘s innovative approach to her instrument stretches its harmonic limits and improvisational possibilities. She is as at home as a soloist with an internationally renowned orchestra as she is playing with a traditional Irish folk group or 
using electronic augmentation in a more contemporary, improvisatory setting. 

She tours internationally as a band leader, soloist and composer as well as belonging to a number of innovative collaborations including the prestigious Grammy award-winning Silkroad Ensemble (as a performer/composer and Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Prince and Night Rein Ensemble (as a performer/arranger). She has appeared at such major music events as Newport Folk Festival, Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Big Ears Festival, the World Harp Congress in Amsterdam and the historic opening of the Scottish Parliament. She has played with such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Esperanza Spalding, Frankie Gavin, Ambrose Akinmusire, Darol Anger, The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Paul Simon. 

Maeve has released five albums to date, including her most recent recording, The Harpweaver which was hailed by the Irish times in its five-star review as “Buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling….a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game.” Other albums include three recordings for the Adventure Music label including her 2017 release with bassist Viktor Krauss, Vignette and a self-released solo album, the Ostinato Project is a beguiling exploration of the possibilities of her instrument. In 2018 Maeve was a featured soloist on the Dreamworks blockbuster movie soundtrack, How to tame your dragon: The hidden world. Maeve was the first lever harpist to be employed as an instructor by her alma mater, Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she taught for five years before switching to being a visiting artist in 2018. She has written several instructional books published by Hal Leonard Music and 80 Days Publishing. She is also an in-demand composer and arranger, with past commissions including two ground-breaking concertos for Lever harp and Symphony Orchestra and several works for harp and string quartet including her three-movement piece Pastures Red premiered at the Edinburgh International Harp festival in 2018. 

Maeve is the Artistic Director of the Rockport Celtic Festival and the Founder of the Hudson Valley Creative Harping Retreat. She resides in Kingston NY with her husband, Logan and one year-old daughter, Ishka.

(Maeve Gilchrist and Aizuri Quartet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2koKs3qIqA&t=5

Sandeep Bhagwati is a multiple award-winning composer, theatre director, poet and academic, born in Mumbai (India). He studied composition and conducting at Mozarteum Salzburg and Musikhochschule München, and computer music at IRCAM Paris. His operas, multi-disciplinary staged works, compositions and comprovisations are performed worldwide at leading venues, festivals, theatres and museums and by renowned ensembles* and by eminent soloists**. He has published widely, both as a public voice and in academia, and is a sought-after keynote speaker and jury member and has founded/curated inter-arts festivals (e.g. A*Devantgarde München) and trans-traditional (a term he coined in 2010) projects with Asian composer-performers and European new music ensembles. Professor of Composition at Karlsruhe Music University since 2000, he became Canada Research Chair for Inter-X Arts at Concordia University Montreal in 2006. There he founded matralab, a interdisciplinary and trans-traditional research/creation node for live arts. Since 2013, he founded and directs trans-traditional music ensembles in Berlin, Pune, and Toronto. Between 2017-2023, he led the TENOR Network, a global research forum for new music notation practices and technologies. Since 2020, he is co-founder / co-editor of “TURBA - The Journal for Global Practices in Live Arts Curation”. His artistic work was the focus of a “Homage Season” 2023/24 initiated by the Quebec New Music Society (SMCQ) and has been a consultant for New Music Concerts Toronto since 2022.

Photo credit: Alain Lefort